Cinematographer

This short was written by my wife, Frances Chewning and co-directed by her and Sarah Smith. It is an autobiographical account of a trip home where everyone in the family tries to do their best to help her Parkinson's-afflicted father get a new pair of glasses. Duncan Birmingham basically portrays me in the film and nails it, except for that I'm much better at packing!

I shot this short film in Cardiff, Wales for my long-time collaborator, Sarah Smith. The film was made with funds from the "Iris Prize" and later was nominated for a Welsh BAFTA. This features one of the final performances of the legendary Ruth Madoc, who was an absolute joy to work with. I fell in head-over-heels in love with Wales while shooting this and was honored to attend the BAFTA Cymru ceremony, which was almost entirely presented in Welsh language... swoon. 

This short film was written/directed by, and starring my amazingly talented friend, Elena Crevello. The story is a highly relatable comedy about doing your best as a parent and feeling like it's not quite enough. Elena's house sadly was lost in the 2024 L.A. fires, so it's very special to see it immortalized, here.

This short film was written/directed by, and starring my very good friend and brilliant creator, Giovanni Adams. We shot this in the depths of the Covid-19 lockdown. Gio wrote the story around the use of Zoom to incorporate other actor's performances, while remaining socially distant. It was a great exercise in finding creative and poignant storytelling solutions in extreme limitations.

This delightfully creepy comedy was written and directed by my friend and frequent collaborator, Duncan Birmingham. It stars Allan McLeod, Fiona Dourif, and the always-hilarious Rob Belushi (also a frequent collaborator).

This short was a lot of fun to make, again with my old partner-in-crime Sarah Smith. The shoot was loads of fun, thanks to the incredible cast of child actors, led in part by the phenomenal adult actor, Sari Lennick.

This was a wild experience. In the opening scene, we had been waiting for Sharon to arrive on location for a while. Once she had finally arrived, we were ready expecting for her to maybe introduce herself or something normal, but she just kicked open the door, fully in character with her gun in hand, and we had to quickly grab the cameras and start filming. At around 0:34, you'll see she grabs a customer and throws him to the ground, which was neither rehearsed, nor expected. Amazing stuff.

Rachel Sondag wrote and starred in this autobiographical "sad comedy" about a struggling young actress who nannies for wealthy clients her age, rubbing salt in her many wounds. This film, which I actually worked on for several years, started out as a short, turned into a feature and ultimately finished as a short. There are many fun cameos and it features a host of UCBLA improv comics.

Undoubtedly, the trashiest thing I ever shot.
Having said, this shoot was tons of fun and Pam was an absolute joy to work with. 

I also directed and edited this one. I already have it on my "Director" page, but I am really proud of the dreamy camerawork. I am a huge fan Carter's and I love the song.

An earlier music video project I did for my friend Carter Tanton and his band, Tulsa. This one was directed by my very good buddy, Marshall Johnson. 

This wild little video was directed by my old friend and NYU classmate, Danny Perez. Danny Went on to do loads of awesome videos for Animal Collective and other artists. He also made a wonderfully insane feature film, Antibirth, which I believe is a modern classic. We shot this film with a Bolex 16mm camera and somewhere in the mix is a shot of them pulling a cigarette butt out of my ear, I believe with a pair of pliers. I had used it as hearing protection while filming the drum sequence in the industrial warehouse space, but I accidentally pushed it in too far and it got stuck. I think we got most of it out.